


Gray Matter

by missrabbitifyanasty



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Angst, Ben Solo Angst, Eventual Relationships, Eventual Romance, Eventual Sex, F/M, Force Sensitivity, Kylo Ren Angst, Kylo Ren Has Issues, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Kylo Ren Redemption, Male-Female Friendship, Redeemed Ben Solo, Repressed Memories, Romance, Sexual Content, Sexual Tension, Skywalker Family Drama, Skywalker Family Feels, Slow Burn, Tension all around, The Dark Side of the Force, The Force, ben solo redemption, past trauma, the grey side of the force
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:53:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25985446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missrabbitifyanasty/pseuds/missrabbitifyanasty
Summary: Kylo Ren / OC pairing. A troubled woman turned seeks to align with The First Order for her own gain and security. After stowing away on a Fi transport carrier she is brought before Kylo Ren, whose hands hold her fate. Secrets, uncertainty, ties to the past and a strange attachment cloud the matter and neither is certain of what lays ahead and nothing is quite what it seems.
Relationships: Ben Solo | Kylo Ren/Original Female Character(s), Ben Solo/Original Female Character(s), Kylo Ren & Original Character(s), Kylo Ren/Original Female Character(s), Leia Organa/Han Solo, Poe Dameron/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> The second rewrite of this work I once had here called Into the Gray. I started rewriting it I guess just as the pandemic hit but wasn't entirely happy with the rewriting, and I got discouraged so I hung it up. I had a dream about it lolol I am remotivated now and I hope to stay that way because I really want to get this written, I've had this in my head for so long and I just want it all out. If you like it, I'd love a comment, if you hate it and think I suck, tell me why too! All feedback is welcome as long as you can be polite.
> 
> This takes place just before TFA. Fair warning, I will be jiggering with the timeline a little and there will be some movie dialogue in certain parts, but I'll try to keep that to a min. 
> 
> Enjoy...I hope!
> 
> Oh, also I don't know why, I've tried to proof about three times but sometimes when I go from word to here some words magically vanish...if you find anything suspect, puhleaaaasee let me know.

**_ Prologue _ **

Traitor, some would call her.

Turncoat.

Snake.

Miscreant even.

The list could go on for days. Labels were an easy thing to come by and it never really mattered all that much if they were accurate or not. Perceived betrayal, perceived immorality, and basic human flaw all had a way of stacking up and stamping a person with a less than desirable social classification. They all had a way of leaving the door wide open for a growing reputation that would forever be whispered about and forever gossiped about behind one’s back but seldom ever to their face.

After all, almost everyone who was primed and ready to make a snap judgment, almost everyone who set out to satiate their nosey streak with a solid round of speculation and gossip, never really cared much about anything other than a one-sided story … And almost everything anyone had to say about Arra in the most negative sense, every name and every label she was bestowed with, was only ever bestowed upon her on account of just that. A one-sided story. Half-truths and misinformation that she was rarely given the luxury of the benefit of the doubt or a chance to explain the _accurate_ reality of things.

Bygones, of course, and not that she cared either way. People would talk, and someone would _always_ have something to say about her. There was little she could do about it and even if there was, there were more important things to worry about.

People would always talk; people would always have something to brand her with. 

Were she tasked with choosing her own label, however, Arra would say she was an opportunist at heart. A lone wolf who lived for and seized each moment as it came. Someone who never missed a chance to jump on whatever presented itself to her ripe for the picking. She was a wild card and she had no promise, no oath of loyalty or anything or anyone … Not anymore anyway. Without anything or anyone to hold her down, she was free to come and go as she so chose. She was free to be a constant observer, a constant collector gathering what she wanted and what she needed to so as to use in her favor. She was free to gather rumors and substantiated information alike wherever she could to use as bargaining chips to buy whatever or whoever necessary to meet her need and endgame …. Whether it be for good intentions or otherwise.

Arra was loyal to nothing and nobody and she wouldn’t have it any other way.

Loyalty, as she had learned, was for the birds. Loyalty was useless. Loyalty was never lasting. Loyalty was but betrayal waiting to happen and cloaked under the guise of some idealistic, hopeful happy ending for those to whom it was deserved. Loyalty, it seemed, was never meant for her. She had seen too much, lived too much, and given too much of herself only to be crushed and thrown to the wayside by all those around her in the end. Loyalty, and the resulting lack there over she had received in return for the abundance she had once given, had built her layers thick and hard. Loyalty had taught her she was nothing, and would never be anything, to anyone other than herself. As far as Arra was concerned, that was just fine. Holding to herself was the only thing she knew to do anymore, the only thing she _wanted_ to do, and the only thing that served her well. To do anything different, to be any different, to hold fast to any other way gave too much chance to hope ... And hope was just little more than wishful thinking and fantasy crafted for children's books.

Hope, as she knew it to be at present, was nothing more than the most tragic of jokes that life was all too happy to offer her at every turn. Hope was as much a lie as loyalty, there was nothing that could convince Arra otherwise, she had no mind for hope. More than that, she certainly had no time for it and she _certainly_ couldn’t allow herself the risk of buying into it.

Hope was lost to her, that much was for certain.

But loyalty, on the other hand, was something she no longer had the luxury of shunning.

War was on the winds; of that everyone was positive. What had started as whispers in dark corners, quiet conversations of the past repeating were now rolling soft as thunder and sweeping every corner of every common territory to be found. The perceived threat of The First Order realized and multiplied by the day. Fear of The Empire reborn shot ice through veins and haunted the dreams of even the most steadfast. Fear that gripped and clawed its way through every corner of the galaxy like an imposing shadow, an unrelenting entity opposed only now by the threat that rose again to meet it. Opposed now, as always, was hope.

Hope. The constant light that cut a swath through the darkness for everyone else. A comfort and a wish for peace. That foolish storybook concept of a happily ever after that everyone clung fast to in the face of opposition and adversity. Hope, delivered in the form of The Resistance. The rebels. The beacon shining bright in the night for people to flock to. The same sort of hope that had prevailed decades prior would make a stand for humanity, for society, once again. After all, what was to say their victory was a feat that couldn’t be repeated?

War was on the winds and there was no place now for a lone wolf to survive in the crossfire, no matter how much Arra wished there was. Loyalty, it would seem, was a concept and an act that she would have to relearn and embrace if she wanted to make it out the other side unscathed and assured of any kind of life in the foreseeable future. The only question that remained, was which path to take. Even then, in all likelihood, the choice had been made for her already so many years ago, when first she had learned so solidly not to place an ounce of trust in hope.

Hope, the farce that had plagued Arra for the better part of her life.

The Resistance, the farce of a faction she had once considered home, once considered family. The path that was now all but lost to her, forced from her even. Too much had happened and at the same time, not enough had. Arra had no choice left open to her other than to turn her back. There would be no return to a “home”, no return to a “family” which had closed the door to her, abandoned her in the time in which she needed them most; forgotten her and left her out in the cold … Or so she had so perceived.

There was no way out of the impending crossfire now but to fix her gaze on a new horizon, a path not entirely untravelled.

Arra was an opportunist and a lone wolf and that wasn’t something that was really ever going to change so long as she could help it. But to weather the storm on her own would be foolish, to say the least, if not downright dangerous. There was but one choice to make and now was the time to make it.

When the chance presented itself, there was nothing other for her to do than jump. When the chance presented itself dead square at her feet, there was nothing more for her to do than take it by the throat and hope that she could deal with whatever trouble followed and lashed at her heels by consequence.

Chance, it so happened, came not entirely expected in the middle of the night on some piece of shit desert planet by way of a First Order transport ship. Stowed away haphazardly, uncharacteristically unguarded, unmanned, and in plain sight. It wasn’t until docking on The Finalizer, being found out and being apprehended that Arra started to second guess her decision and full well realize that she hadn’t exactly thought her course of action all the way through. It wasn’t until being hauled off into some ridiculously small, ridiculously uncomfortable holding cell that she understood that hoping she would be able to deal with the ramifications of her choice was 100% different than the actuality of doing so.

Moreover, it wouldn’t be much longer after that, only once she was smack dab in the center of the proverbial whirlwind she had purposely thrown herself into, that she would realize the magnitude of her entire situation and the way that nothing would ever be the same again.


	2. Chapter One: Stowaway - Part One

_ **Chapter One: Stowaway - Part One** _

To say that Arra’s head throbbed, and throbbed badly, would be an understatement of epic magnitude.

In point blank fact, her head throbbed so badly it was just about all she could think about; it was just about all she could focus on. Huddled in the corner of her impossibly tiny cell with her knees pulled tightly to her torso and her forehead pressed down against them, it was the only thing that existed and the only thing that seemed to matter. Everything else was peripheral. Her surroundings, her situation, the complicated next steps in her not so well planned out endgame. Nothing, not one single, solitary, lonely little thing registered on her radar of importance. Not when the horrible beat drumming against her skull and the blood that thrummed through her eardrums in time were both enough to make the rest of the world around her fade to gray and drive ever-present nausea to a level at which she was only just barely able to keep the pitiful contents of her stomach at bay.

Nothing else seemed to matter, and at a moment in time when _everything_ else should be at the forefront of her mind, such a fact was problematic, to say the least.

But it was done, that was the main thing.

She had done it.

The first hurdle of her so-called master plan had been cleared.

For what it was worth that much, at the very least, was a comfort to her now … As much as it could be anyway.

She had done it. She had made it.

The first bold step in the long chain of steps of which she was so uncertain was now complete. But the first step, the boldest step, was always the easiest of the bunch and this one had been no exception.

To her fortune, the presence of The First Order was every bit as far-reaching as its predecessor; maybe even more so. Old allegiances seldom ever really died, after all. Even in defeat, there were still strong bonds to the old Empire, some in clusters of secrecy and others blatantly out in the open for anyone and everyone to see in the seedier, darker, and more remote stretches of the galaxy. Old bonds made for continued allies and old _sympathizers_ made for new allies. Whether the lost, the misguided, or the broken, not so unlike Arra herself or the steadfast, loyal, and assured, The First Order held influence just as strongly as the Resistance.

Buying the intel she had so needed, bartering for passage to some piece of shit planet in the darkest corner of the galaxy where First Order presence was rampant. Sneaking aboard a transport ship stealthily enough to not be caught in the act but yet not stealthily enough that she would evade being taken into custody. Stirring up a shitstorm in order to bring attention up the chain of command, it had all been so _very_ easy for her; almost unsettlingly so. And whether it was on sheer account of determination, pure dumb luck, or something else that would have less desirable consequences, Arra didn’t really know. Thus far, however, fortune had decided to smile upon her.

The first step was always the easiest, and luck had been with her to that point. But there would be nothing easy about what was to come next. And in all likelihood, the fickle bitch that prosperity tended to be had likely blessed her with its good graces just then and only then and had now left her to fend for herself; forcing her to manipulate her way back into good standing and sway the odds to her favor.

… _If_ she could, that is. Arra was in hostile territory now, after all. Nothing was more of a reminder of such a cold hard fact than the claustrophobic confines of her cell and the muted cacophony of strained conversation that echoed softly from beyond its walls. It grew nearer and nearer by the minute, carrying with it what could very likely be her fate sealed by way of swift execution.

If she couldn’t tempt Lady Luck to be with her once again and ride shotgun on her shoulder, Arra was as good as dead.

“It was just after departure, sir.”

She pulled her still pounding head from her knees, biting back a fresh wave of dizziness and nausea in order to strain her ears as best she could. What once had been mumbles rang clearer just outside her cell and muted nonsense gave way to actual discussion to be deciphered.

“We found her just as transport was departing the Outer Rim. Sure kicked up a shit storm when we did. She’s small but she’s got the fight of--  
  


“Enough.”

A secondary voice interjected. Abrupt and annoyed. Heavily modulated, deep and resonant like the first ominous roar of an unrelenting storm. It was notably familiar and foreboding in its timbre, like something out of a half-forgotten nightmare. She had heard it before more than just a few times in passing once upon a time, what now felt like half a lifetime ago, when she had last set foot within the walls of The Finalizer under such _very_ different circumstances. Burned into her brain in some respect, it was unmistakable. There was no doubt of to whom it belonged.

Kylo Ren.

It was Kylo Ren who they had brought to her to parley, and luck, as it were, had indeed absconded like a thief in the night; leaving Arra to dig herself out of a bigger hole than which she had bargained for.

“Why do you enjoy regaling me with stories of your incompetence?” Ren spat flatly, a note of barely constrained rage detectable just below the surface of a calm, impeccably controlled façade.

“Just-just a report sir … I didn’t mean--”

“Useless. And why wasn’t I briefed on docking? Why was I made to wait hours before hearing any of this? Why did _I_ have to chase down _your_ division?”

General Hux thought it best if--”

“ _General Hux_ should know better by now. Guests of the First Order speak to me and _only_ me. Remind him.”

“Sir.”

“Better yet … Tell your general _I’ll_ remind him of his place the next time he feels fit to stick his nose where it doesn’t belong. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir. Understood, sir.”

“Good. Open it and wait … I won’t need long.”

A sharp metallic whir of gears that operated the metal gateway, the only division that parted Arra from _him_. A quick hiss and a warm breeze as the doors slid back smoothly and he was there before her in all his terrible glory.

He was tall and terrifying. A sight to behold, a nightmare robed in black. A shadow, a specter that stood silent as he regarded the intruder who had dared force herself into his midst before slowly, pointedly moving towards her.

With every foot fall of his heavy boots, Arra pulled into herself and curled back against the wall, trying to sink into it, shrinking under his masked gaze. It wasn’t conscious and it wasn’t by choice but rather it was by instinct; some strange cold feeling deep in the pit of her being. Some visceral reaction at first sight that made her cower pathetically like a frightened baby animal alone in the wild for the first time; like some poor gutless sap, a shameful, worthless coward. Some visceral reaction at first sight that forced Arra to betray herself and act against everything she was … Or everything she thought she was anyway.

Every heavy boot fall brought him closer to her, and what was already the smallest cell known to man closed in even more around her. One deliberate step after another taking what seemed like an eternity for him to traverse such a finite span between them until at long last, he was stood but a handful of inches away, statuesque, stoic, and still silent as the grave.

Arra could barely muster the will to draw her eyes upwards to meet the void in the middle of the mask that hid his visage so menacingly. The cold, hard, exterior he presented, formidable, unfeeling, and imposing. Like something pulled out of one’s deepest fears and brought to life. He stood before here, intimidating, unfeeling, and imposing in a way entirely unique to him and him alone in a way that almost instantly and almost entirely sucked every last molecule of air right out of the room.

There he stood, right in front of her, towering over her, watching her astutely before making the first move; waiting just long enough to break her nerve and set her on edge.

In an instant, the gravity of the situation hit Arra full force and unavoidable; a sucker punch to knock her clean off her feet and send her spinning. It was going to take a lot more than luck. Even with every well-honed skill she had at the ready to wield she would be trumped by him . She was outmatched and outmatched badly. Any course of action and any hint of strategy she may have been able to formulate on the fly was out the window faster than she could blink.

They had brought Kylo Ren to her to parley.

She had thrown herself headlong into the lion’s den and now she only stood a fool’s chance of climbing back out.

“So, _this_ the stowaway.” Ren lowered himself to her eye level, falling back on his haunches to impose a little further through the duration of his interrogation. “ _This_ is the girl they tell me put up such a fight.”

He cocked his head to the side, searching her, scanning her features and examining his newfound prisoner with as much curiosity as he did contempt for the imposition she had managed to cause. She was smaller than he had imagined her to be on description. More fragile, for lack of a better word. A slender slip of a girl who looked as though she probably hadn’t had an adequate night’s rest or adequate meal in weeks. She looked downtrodden, battered, _defeated._ A tiny whisper of a girl, delicate features wrought and weary, outfitted, accentuated by a darkening bruise across the cheek and a thoroughly split lip; a swelling above the eye and a decent amount of dried blood that matted dark hair to the side of her head and had started to crust over a fresh wound.

All maladies undoubtedly courtesy of her host.

She was a mess, a wreck, a shell of something that was once perhaps much stronger and much less on the brink of breaking. But by the looks of her, she had been at the end of her rope, dying for some sort of reprieve, for far too long. She was so close to the edge, by all appearances, all it seemed it would take was just one slight, gentle push and she would shatter into a thousand pieces if not more. She was defeated, or at the very least, remarkably close to it.

And yet still, there was a spark in her. It was there, just barely notable for Ren to pick out. A faint flash in moss green eyes with which she returned his stare. The subtle way she tilted her chin upwards in defiance to boost her own morale and uplift herself for the task at hand as he spoke. There was a flicker of spirit in her that anyone could see, there was no denying it. But it wasn’t that obvious display and that obvious glint that told him so. More importantly than any of that, there was a flicker, a spark of _something_ that he could _feel_ in her, somewhere buried in the depths. Something more than just a lingering hit of resistance serving as a proverbial life raft to cling to.

 _Something._ But _what_ and _why_ there was anything there for him to feel at all, Ren wasn’t quite sure. And _that_ was the most curious of all.

“I have to admit, you’re not what I expected. You don’t look like you have it in you … I’m impressed.”

Arra gave him nothing in return. Not a single word.

The only thing Ren managed to weasel out of her was a sharp hiss as she winced away from his gloved hand when his fingers came to rest at the split skin of her temple and pressed into the raw flesh just a little too firmly.

“I was told you wished to speak and now it seems I heard wrong.” His voice dropped slightly, the rasp through the modulator in his mask finding some modicum of a softer, gentler, almost melodic tone; just enough to throw her, just enough to tenuously set her a little at ease. Just enough to bring down the walls without giving too much. “Now that I’ve come, you’re so quiet … So guarded … So nervous. I’d tell you don’t be, but that won’t work, will it? You can’t help it. A part of you still wants to fight, doesn’t it? A part of you is still _trying_ to fight … You just don’t know how to do it, not here … Not now.”

“Whatever.” Arra scoffed reactively and turned her head from him; a faint smirk playing on her lips as she did her best to brush off the fact that he was 10,000% right.

In a swift flick of two curled fingers and an effortless display of his abilities, Ren forced her back to face him, whipping her a little dizzy in the process. The second heavy blow of reality thrust upon her in just about as many minutes.

“Do you think you’d win?”

She wouldn’t and she knew it.

Ren wasn’t wrong. Arra didn’t know how to fight him, not really anyway; she didn’t even know where to begin. She could toy with him and he would toy with her right back. The difference was his deck was so solidly stacked against her, there was no room to barter. There would be no roundabout way of gaining the upper hand by dropping just a scrap or two at his feet by which to intrigue him and make him up his anty and counter some sort of offer in return. If she didn’t give Ren exactly what he wanted, a little whiplash would be the least of her worries. If she didn’t give him exactly what he wanted, she had no doubt she’d be dead and disposed of faster than she could blink. He wasn’t known for holding a compassionate streak after all. He was ruthless, vicious and uncompromising in the pursuit of his own interests and she, Arra was quite certain, was rather disposable as far a he was concerned.

If she didn’t give him exactly what he wanted, he would kill her, that much was almost guaranteed. The rub of it was the fact that she stood the exact same likelihood of meeting the exact same fate even if she complied. Arra’s only option, her only plan of attack worth anything at all, would be to try and draw out the potentially inevitable as long as possible; to play some enticing game of cat and mouse to buy herself some time. A few days, a few hours even, some window by which she could actually think and plot something out rather than flying by the seat of her pants. She could toy with him, volley back and forth with him, or rather she could try to, for as long as his patience would hold out … And for now, that would have to suffice.

“ _Do_ you?” Ren flexed his skill again and a fresh bolt of pain ripped through Arra’s skull.

She knew he could hurt her if he really wanted to and if he really wanted to, he would do so without hesitation … But knowing something and experiencing it firsthand were two very different things. Like a white-hot knife searing clean through her, it was startling in intensity that sparked not so much a ringing in her ears as much as a shrieking. Were she not already seated on the floor of the cell; it would have brought her to her knees as the room about her began to spin again.

“N-no.” Arra sputtered miserably.

“It would be better for you to speak up.” 

Another flex and she cracked a little, failing miserably in her effort bite back the yelp that slipped past her lips; unquestionably serving Ren a dose of satisfaction. Hand to the bridge of her nose and grimacing through the discomfort, Arra cleared her throat, forced a breath, and did her best to make herself sound a little steadier as if it made any difference.

“No.”

“Good, we agree then.” Whatever fleeting softness there had been in Ren’s tone had gone as quickly as it had come. “I was told you wished to speak. So. Speak.”

“What do you want me to tell you?”

“The truth.” He spat matter of factly. “You’ve trespassed on one of my transport carriers … You’re trespassing on my destroyer as we speak … I want you to tell me everything. It shouldn’t be too difficult … Should it?”

Arra fought herself to try and find the words to begin. She tried to find something, anything at his behest only to fall incredibly short. Her tongue tangling and her voice seizing in the back of her throat at the most inopportune time imaginable, all she could do was try and force the words to come but they just wouldn’t. She was locked to the spot, frozen under his gaze and held captive by the way he stared clean through her and she couldn’t muster a single syllable to save her life.

She was held captive there before him, under a pregnant pause every bit as imposing as Ren himself; unnerved but not so much terrified as transfixed as she burned through every opportunity, she was being given with record speed.

“Nothing … Really?”

It should have been so easy just to speak … But she couldn’t and the fact that she couldn’t did not bode well for the way the rest of the ordeal was going to play out.

“How _very_ disappointing.” Ren huffed with notable irritation.

Blame it on the tax even getting to this point had put on her in every sense of the word. Blame it on the solid beating she had received at the hands of a pair of stormtroopers. Blame it on the shock of being faced with _him_ and knowing in very short order she would have to go toe to toe. Blame it on 10,000 other things or blame it on everything all at once, it didn’t really matter, Arra was choking and choking badly. She could draw their meeting out; she could engage him in a back and forth in which she could hold her own … She could save her own skin that way, of that, Arra was almost certain. But to do so, she needed to give herself a stranglehold on Ren’s attention, and the more she faltered, the more and the faster it would slip away.

“She can sit until she feels more talkative … She doesn’t eat until she does.” He shot his command over his shoulder without pulling his gaze from her.

“Yes, sir.” 

“Send for me when she’s too weak to stand … Then we’ll see how eager she is for a chat … And if she isn’t … If it’s _still_ a fight she wants …” Ren leaned towards her, his voice barely above a whisper; the back of his hand ghosting over her cheek so softly that from anyone else it would be endearing and sweet. “… I’ll give her one.”

His words hung in the air poignantly in a pregnant pause as he pushed himself back to his feet, towering over her momentarily before turning heel and making to take his leave. The hammer strike of Ren’s boot on the cold durasteel floor panel halfway out of the cell shook Arra back to reality and jolted a fresh dose of courage through her veins to steel her nerves and force herself to do what she needed to.

“Wait …” She called out for him to stop before the nerve had gone and before the opportunity was lost; before he had the chance to make their next encounter more uncomfortable than their first had already been.

“I’ve waited long enough.” Ren didn’t so much as turn to face her.

“I know. I-I—"

“You waste my time.” He had no mind for pandering for the sake of hearing simple excuses.

“Just … Wait.”

He shot a frigid stare over his shoulder cold, controlled and curious all at once; something in her voice pricking at the itch in the back of his mind once again; something about the way she stared back at him, meek and mild, a shell of a girl on the floor of a cell barely big enough to turn around in, that rooted him to the spot.

“ _Please_?”

Ren wasn’t in the habit of indulging prisoners, or anyone else for that matter, and his patience was running threadbare. After another heavy, silent impasse of sorts he relented and traced his steps back towards her. He wasn’t in the habit of providing second chances without some measure of consequence. Not even for small or petty matters such as this.

This once though, and just this once, he would make an exception … And it would be by only fault of her own if Arra decided to squander it.

“Fine … You think you’ve regained your voice, then use it. I’ll even make it easy for you.” He circled around and briskly dropped down in front of her again, this time a little closer so as to make evading both his presence and his gaze a little more difficult. “I’ll have your name while you try and find what backbone you think you have.”

“Ar—” She cleared her throat, chasing away a momentary resurgence of nervousness. “Arra.”

“Very good … Was that so difficult?”

She shook her head in a wordless reply.

“It certainly seems it … Maybe I’m mistaken.” He jibed her condescendingly, pointedly trying to get a rise out of her so she would drop the wall and react. So she wouldn’t have to pull each answer out of her like a particularly stubborn dental extraction. So she would lash out and react and give him full license and full excuse to react himself in the one way he was so _very_ good at. “And your family name?”

“Just Arra.”

“No family name … So you’re a slave then?”

“No.”

“An orphan?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then _what_ exactly?”

Arra’s demeanor shifted. The nervousness and uncertainty in her eyes quickly deadened and gave way to something else entirely. Something stronger, something more resolute, something colder … And more importantly, something angrier.

“None of your business.”

“Really?”

He’d hit a nerve.

“Is that what you think?” He leaned into her a little more, bringing his masked visage but an inch or two away from hers; full well enjoying the shift in mood and the nuance of venom that lilted in her voice. “How bold of you. Everything about you is my business.” 

“It’s not important.”

“That’s not your decision … It’s _always.important_ … Your family name …”

“I don’t have one …” Arra grit her teeth and bit back a swell of frustration.

“Liar.” Ren’s voice barely above an ominous whisper. "Should I go in and get it myself?”

It started with a tingle.

A fluttering in her head, just faint enough to distinguish.

When it started it was barely there. Just at the edge of her thoughts. Just enough to let her know how easily he could pick her brain and get whatever he wanted whether she co-operated or not. Anything more than doing just that was a courtesy and her willing participation wasn’t needed for this process. When it started it was just enough to reaffirm that he had and would always have the upper hand.

“You know there’s nothing you can keep from me.” He warned softly, lightly smoothing gloved fingertips over the blood crusted tendrils of hair at her temple. “Don’t make me dig … You won’t enjoy it.”

Arra’s breath caught in her chest as he probed a little deeper, a little more insistently and a little more aggressively. What once was a tingle and a flutter turned into a sharp sting and a hum growing ever louder in her head by the second. A slow burn and warmth that spread over every inch of her and was anything but pleasant.

He pressed around the edges, scanning through anything and everything he could get his proverbial fingers on. He rifled through everything insignificant that he couldn’t care less about just because he could and just because he wanted her to _know_ he could. He pressed deeper and deeper through her mind to dig out what she was so unwilling to provide, sending flashes in rapid-fire racing right through her. Flashes of all memories of all past lives she seldom spoke of. Memories of people and places, conversations, and circumstances she would give her right arm to be wiped clean of all dragged to the surface for her to suffer through.

That could be ignored. The reopened wounds and the bruises just below the surface could be cast to the side without a care. Arra had buried everything and everyone she never wanted to think about six feet under once, she was more than capable of doing it again. Long had she been well schooled at blocking out the trauma, the pain, and anything else there was to be dredged up by her past.

What she _couldn’t_ ignore, however, and what was a steadily growing concern, was the way the deeper Ren tore his way through the fabric of her subconscious, the harder it was becoming for her to keep a grip on herself. The harder it was for her to keep some things under lock and key and hidden away where he couldn’t find it; where he wouldn’t _know_ everything there was to know about her all at once and entirely too quickly for her to have any recourse at all.

There were _some_ cards Arra _couldn’t_ yet lay on the table.

There were _some_ things she didn’t _want_ to.

But every passing second Ren wormed his way through her thoughts, and every passing second she tried so valiantly to fight against him through clenched teeth and the tears that pricked at the corners of her eyes, she lost her grip on everything he couldn’t afford to lose her grip on a little more.

Her hand was forced.

She had no choice. She had to give it to him. She had to let Ren take her down that path no matter how much she didn’t want to. There was no other way out without spilling everything she was not yet ready to have spilled out and ripe for his picking.

She had to give it to him and hope that it was enough to buy her time … Before she gave him _everything._

“Your family name … give it to me.”


	3. Chapter Two: Stowaway - Part Two

**_ Chapter Two: Stowaway Pt. Two _ **

**__ **

“Give it to me.” Ren bid her again, punctuating his words with an extra jab into her subconscious; driving home the fact that he had been at best, merely skimming the surface and that he was barely even trying. “I won’t ask again.”

Every awful wave of him assaulted every one of her senses and overwhelmed her in a way like nothing Arra had ever known. It was true what they said about him, the strength of the force in him and how easily he was able to use it; how he could overtake anyone he so chose in the bat of an eye as though it were nothing more to him than simply drawing breath. How he could, and would, weave himself deeper into her like a virus; some foreign being tearing holes right through her and tugging at whatever it needed with far reaching tentacles from which there was no escape.

Just a touch, she told herself. She would give just a little and just enough to satiate him … As though it would be so simple to stem the flood and keep what needed to be close to the chest with him thumbing around her brain.

Every second he pressed a little more and every second, Arra could feel what loose grip she had left slip away a little more. She had to give him just a taste and she had to give it now, before he managed to steal it all.

“Skipburn …” She hissed, fingernails digging perfect crescent moons into her palms as she tried to ignore the feel of him working her over. “Skipburn … It’s Skipburn!”

Ren relented and pulled himself back momentarily to give Arra brief reprieve; a sick reward for forced obedience.

“I don’t know it.”

“I told you so.” She fought to regain frantic breath as it caught in her chest. “I told you it wasn’t important.”

“I said I didn’t know it in that it’s common enough there’s simply nothing of note about you … I didn’t _say_ you were right, did I?”

“Whatever.”

“There’s absolutely nothing of note about you … But your family … That’s a different story, wouldn’t you say?”

Arra shifted her eyes away from him again and bit back a wave of distaste.

“They were a part of The Rebellion, were they not? Your _parents_?’ He cooed matter of factly. “You’d have hidden that from me too if I would have let you. Maybe you don’t think _that_ important either.”

“Maybe I just don’t care.”

“Ah, but you do.”

“ _No_ , I don’t.”

“Your father was a pilot, wasn’t he? A good one at that … Better than good … Maybe even one of the best … Isn’t that what your mother used to tell you?” Ren continued, ripping at the scab on the wound Arra didn’t want to admit still existed. “Killed on Endor, before you were born. You might have never known him, but she used to tell you all about him every time you asked. Every story and every praise … You couldn’t get enough.”

Arra swallowed the lump in her throat and choked back the swell of emption, sending it back down into the pit of her gut.

“She told you all the time, how _much_ he would have loved you. How _proud_ you would have made him had he survived … Maybe _if_ he had survived, things could have been _so.different_.”

“Irrelevant.” Her best attempt at rebuttal seethed past clenched teeth. “You’re really awful at this, you know that? You’re fucking wasting your time.”

It really came as no surprise Ren managed to hit at the most tender spot imaginable straight off the bat in order to wear her down. Weakness was weakness, after all. She, above anyone else, knew that it was to be exploited wherever and whenever possible. He had hit her where it hurt and in all likelihood to Ren, and everything he had at his disposal, her weakness may as well have been embroidered on her sleeve; bright and clear as day, begging to be torn apart. Weakness was weakness, and while it wasn’t exactly a surprise he had struck _there_ first, it didn’t mean it didn’t catch her off guard.

"No." Ren dismissed her deflection. "I don't think so."

"Yeah, well you can think anything you want … It doesn’t make it the truth.”

“How about if I _feel_ it? Is it the truth then?” Ren’s demeanour softened again, and his tone shifted borderline sympathetic; more genuinely this time, not just as a means to an end. “I do, you know. I can feel it in you. I can feel everything … I can feel that pain that was left behind … That scar on your soul. It’s tainting every single thing you say … I can almost smell it.”

“Fuck you.”

“I can feel how hard you try and shut it out … How _desperately_ you try and ignore the weight of that sadness that’s settled in your chest for as long as you can remember.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You can lie to yourself if you really want to … But you can’t lie to me.” A strange consolation passed his lips. “Don’t be ashamed of it. It’s all right, I understand.”

“I don’t _know_ what you’re talking about.” Arra reiterated, unrelenting in her refusal to acknowledge anything he made light of; regardless of whether it was the stone-cold truth or not.

“Don’t you?”

"No."

“You don’t ever think of everything you never had? Everything you were so robbed of even as a child? You don’t occupy your time with anything, or _anyone_ that holds your attention just long enough to make you forget?” His voice dipped softer. “You don’t think about how happy your life could have been … How _easy_ it could have been … If only?”

“Shut up.”

“You reminded her of him … Every day.”

“Stop.”

“Every time you spoke, every time you looked at her.” His tone reverted to its previous state, cold, flat, unfeeling and unsympathetic, at the drop of a hat. “Every time you smiled, every time you laughed … With everything you did you reminded your mother of him.

Arra pushed against him, trying to force out what lingering grip he had over her mind. She tried with everything she had to shut him out, to stonewall and rip his satisfaction out of his hands, but it was pointless. His proverbial fingers grazing so skillfully through her thoughts, the eerie calm and hypnotic sound of his voice and the way he hovered so very close to her … She was caught in his snare now and she had no hope of getting out.

This is what he wanted.

He had never wanted answers, or rather, he had never wanted her to offer them to him _freely_ … Or so it seemed. He wanted the challenge, he wanted her to resist. He fed on it. It wasn’t just the way he could so easily tease everything he wanted out of her. It was the experience of the entire ordeal. He wanted to break her. He wanted her to be afraid, to feel pain, to feel anger, to suffer through every emotion imaginable.

He got off on it.

It was some sick game that got worse the longer it went on and he was enjoying every second of it.

This is what he wanted. To whittle her down to nothing.

With every rise of emotion and every empty denial from her lips, she was playing right into his hands … But she was powerless to stop it.

“You look so much like him. you _act_ so much like him. No wonder she couldn’t even bear the sight of you. She resented you for it so much … She hated you for it.”

“I said _stop_.” Arra’s voice cracked a little; thick with emption she tried in vain to stem the heat in the corners of her eyes and seal the floodgates shut.

"You were so young, so confused when she left you.”

Ren stiffened slightly, unable to keep himself from projecting his own anger and his own disgust onto the situation; his collected exterior fracturing as he started to give way to his own emption.

“When she _abandoned_ you.” He spat, disdain coloring his voice. “You … Her only child … She left you with people who were as good as strangers without a second thought because you looked too much like your father …”

“She left you.” He spat, disdain coloring his voice. “You … Her only child. She left you without a second thought because you looked too much like your father. Because of who you were and how it made her sick to her stomach to look after you …”

“Please…” She strangled a sob, but the damage was already done and there was no tempering the tears that spilled forth over delicate cheekbones.

“She _abandoned_ you … Your own mother … And still you care.”

“No.”

“Liar.” A single finger hooked and dragged across her face to swipe away a tear. “Don’t cry sweetheart, save it for someone who matters … Like you could have mattered to her … Like you _should_ have mattered to her. She never cared about you … You were always just a ghost.”

“Stop!” Arra’s tiny, shaky voice reverberated off the walls around them.

She was strained and spent but in one concentrated surge of will, she tore herself free of his unrelenting grip. She snapped through it, shaking the unshakable so forcefully she rocked back and collided with the wall with a solid thud.

The bond was broken and a stifling, heavy silence hung in the air; thick enough to cut with a knife.

“Such fight in you … Even now … Even when your sorrow could swallow you alive.” Ren spoke first after what seemed like an eternity.

Unanswered questions had started to stack one on top of the other. No one had ever resisted him before, not like that anyway. No one had been able to force him out. She was strong in a way she was completely oblivious too and in a way that only served to deepen his curiosity. There was a spark in her, the faintest glimmer of something buried so deep, secreted away in her psyche. It itched at the back of his mind. That spark she had buried deep down inside her, that strength and the resonance of it that rippled through him in kind and felt so inexplicably familiar; pieces to fit together in a puzzle the girl had no idea she was even in … And neither did he.

“Such resistance. Such defiance. Such strength … Through everything, you fight so admirably… But I’m growing tired of this game.”

Arra could do nothing but glare at him while he toyed with her the same way a cat toys with a mouse before snuffing it out.

"You’re hiding something.”

“I’m not hiding _any--”_

“You _are_. You just don’t know it yet. I can find it … I can show you.”

Fingers outstretched, he moved closer to her primed and ready to drive full force past her defences and bend her will to his.

"No more games … You’ll give me what I want. Even if you force me to rip you apart, you’ll give me what I want … It’s your choice to make.”

“Get away from me …” Arra growled, pulling away from him as best she could with her back to the wall. “Don’t you fucking touch me!”

A gentle touch was something Ren no longer had time or patience for. Not now, not after having his curiosity driven to a fever pitch. He hadn’t the time or patience to deal with a random, stubborn girl who continued to oppose him and didn’t expect to be handed a swift and painful retribution.

Lunging for her, he rooted her to the spot, tightly holding her in place with no hope for escape, and in one fluid surge he seared his way back into her; fingers now pressed against her skull at the point of her wound and digging into it so as to split the skin for a little extra enforcement and discomfort.

Arra yelped and flailed against him. What had until then been uncomfortable, what she had thought was already horrible enough, now proved to be the tip of the iceberg. A gentle, oddly courteous display of his abilities that vanished in a flash and left only agony in its wake.

All the flashes, all the breadcrumbs, he pried free from her in rapid succession to lead him to his intended target.

Flashes of her and her mother at first during happier times, under the guise of the happy home life of a loving family. Flashes of happier times that quickly shifted to flashes and feelings of the torment at turmoil, the devastation she’d felt at being cast aside and thrown away with such little regard.

Flashes like picture books of everything in her life, and the wreckage it had been, that drew any sort of raw emotion and left a lasting mark. Memories she cherished and memories that haunted her. Images and snippets of conversations with people she held dear and with people she would have rather put a blaster hole clean through. The good, the bad, and everything in-between … Ren ripped his way through it all and everything he managed to ascertain was useless. Nothing he could glean was what he sought. Nothing he could filter out brought him any closer to that which he was dying to uncover.

She wasn’t allowing it. She was blocking him.

No matter how much she crumbled now, she still resisted with everything she had. She fought him with every ragged breath and every pained sigh that ripped through her body. Even if it was all for naught, she was still stronger than she understood herself to be. That much, Ren would give her credit for.

She was blocking him of her own accord … But she was also blocking him by way of anything but. Something else was at work, something bigger, something stronger, something far beyond her own conscious efforts. It was intentional and it was far above either of them. He was blocked, locked out. He hit a wall in her mind that had been placed to barricade whatever lay just beyond it; whatever spark that piqued his interest so badly he could barely stand it. He hit a wall in her mind that was intentionally placed to secret whatever lay beyond away, never to be realized again.

It was placed there intentionally, of that Ren was certain.

What he couldn’t decide, however, was _why_ it had been so placed. What was lost on him at first blush was whether it was placed as a barricade to keep people such as himself at bay, to keep whatever it was to be kept at just out of arm’s reach … Or whether it had been placed there, in the depths of her mind, to keep Arra herself from being able to glean it. He couldn’t decide whether it was built so intentionally to keep something under lock and key to protect _her_ or whether it was built to protect others.

Not that it mattered, of course. Ren wanted it. He wanted to know everything about it and there was nothing, that he knew of anyway, that stood a chance at stopping him from doing just that. The block, the barricade was strong … But he was stronger, and he would dig past what layers remained and he would rip what he wanted free of its prison if it was the last thing he did.

With a fresh surge of his own will, he dug his fingers against her skill a little firmer as he pressed his way through her thoughts with even more force. Ignoring unspoken pleas for him to relent and shutting out her pain that now radiated unto him, Ren had Arra right where he wanted her as the fog lifted and presented a bigger, clearer picture. She was hiding something, and she didn’t even know it and on top of that she was hiding something, many things, she had been all too desperate for him not to see … And now he had her trapped with a proverbial knife at her throat, ready to take the kill.

This hadn’t been her first visit to The Finalizer … It was not her first stay within its walls. She’d been with The Order before, through the haze of everything else, Ren was able to grasp. It wasn’t clear how, or why, or when. All he could suss out was self-imposed buried memories tangled with notes of fear and doubt, shame and hatred and beyond that, something more.

She had been with The Order before, but older things buried even deeper punctured through. Older thoughts and older emotions at the center of which ties to The Resistance sparked and lit up the dark; dim and faded but none the less still just strong enough to make out, like a beacon breaking the hold of a mighty storm; ever present and beckoning her home.

Neither revelation stood alone, and Ren wasn’t lucky enough to pick the shards free from each other and put them back together in a way by which he could make sense of. They were intertwined, heavily knotted and bound to one another in an infuriating way that could not be undone and left him without any sure-fire way to swiftly sort the whole mess out. Curious revelations … Dangerous revelations even if only just barely hinted at. All things that would need further exploration, further answers to curious questions on top of curious questions of which he was so desperate to nail down the answers to.

It was frustrating. _She_ was frustrating him.

She was hiding things, so many things, he needed to know and now, beyond the rat’s nest he had started to stir up, the wall had begun to fall; cracking and spiderwebbing, a brittle barrier soon to be nothing more than a pile of rubble for Ren to stomp his way through. … But Arra was about to break, he could feel it; he could feel the way she faded under the pressure with which he plied her.

She had had enough.

“Enough” for her was more than he could have or ever would have expected from anyone and as impressive as that fact was, he couldn’t chance another push; even a gentle one to get what he wanted and have it in hand to soothe the itch in the back of his mind. He had brought her to the brink and any more stood a very real risk of killing her and leaving him robbed of solving the newfound mystery. Ren had done all he could for the time being. She was shattered before him despite the strength she had so valiantly displayed. An overwhelmed wreck of a fragile little bird at the mercy, at the pity of her predatory host … If there was any pity to be had at his hands.

Reluctantly, begrudgingly he bit back his irritation and lifted his hand from her head to break the bond again and withdraw, this time of his own accord. Arra slumped against the wall as he did, choking on her breath; fingers flexing against the panels trying in vain to lock her grip on something, anything to give herself an ounce of strength to shift herself back more upright.

“Oh, there _is_ something there … So many things.” Ren hooked a finger under her chin and tilted it upward. “And I will have them … One way or another, do you understand?”

She trembled under his touch, weak and helpless; barely able to keep a hold on her consciousness as he dipped his head lower to rest alongside hers.

“You’re going to tell me everything, even if I have to _carve_ it out of you.” He half whispered, melodic lilt in his voice and the chill of his mask grazing against her cheek. “You will tell me. You will give it to me, you _pretty.little.thing_ … But not tonight.”

Arra trembled under his touch, weakened, shaking, dazed and breathless; every scrap of physical strength she had nothing more than a fleeting memory. With one last lingering stare, Ren pushed himself to his feet and turned his back to her to leave her as her vision darkened and the sound around her faded and echoed about the cell.

“See to it she’s tended to. Keep her well enough to keep her alive … Nothing more.” He shot a casual order over his shoulder. “She sees no one without my say.”

“Yes, sir.”

With that he was gone, just as effortlessly as he had appeared.

With that Arra was left to her own devices, alone in the cold confines of her prison cell to recover.

… And in some manner, left on her own to navigate the mindscape of her own personal Hell.


End file.
